Outlook 2007 - Personal Folders confusion

[tinpanalley]

I am setting up Outlook for the first time with an IMAP account, I've used it for years with POP3. I was on the phone yesterday with a guy from Microsoft for 30 minutes and while he was able to explain to me how IMAP works over and over he left me still completely confounded as to what the purpose of the "Personal Folders" folder is. If it's the default, why doesn't your account info go in there? And if I'm not using it because Microsoft created another account folder, then why can't I delete it and leave the folder that I actually work with? It makes no sense to me. Can someone please explain better than a Microsoft associate?

 

[hang-the-9]

A .pst file is just a store to hold your information when it's downloaded from the server. Not sure what you mean about account info, do you mean your username and server info? You can also use a .pst file to move old emails to, to organize things by years to keep your inbox easier to work with, etc...

If you look in your account options it will tell you what your default email store is, it's probably some .pst file.

 

[tinpanalley]

What I meant was, if it's the default, then when I add in my email server info why doesn't my email account populate the personal folders folder rather than creating something new underneath it on Outlook? I just don't get, if it's not being used, why it's there? Why doesn't it exist for example, in Thunderbird? If it were necessary you'd think they'd do the same thing in that software, no?

It's just that it's bad enough that my email account syncs with all the useless GoDaddy webmail folders I have that I don't use. I don't also need to see a whole chunk of folders I don't use, you know?

As a sidenote, Outlook is alarmingly slow with IMAP. Wasn't this way with POP3. Is that an Outlook thing or is it GoDaddy? I've heard several people complain that GoDaddy sucks for email hosting.

Thoughts?

 

[hang-the-9]

pst files are used in Outlook, you can't compare it to other applications. Other email clients will hold email locally just not in the same type of file. Unless you only set them up to be a viewer and leave the emails on the server which you can do with IMAP http/support.microsoft.com/kb/286197

If you look in your account settings, and the email download location does not go to any file, you don't need to use the .pst file. I would not delete it though, just rename it or move it and see what happens. You may need to remove it from the open list in Outlook. Even if it's not the default location, it will complain the file is missing if it's configured to open it.

Don't know about slowness with IMAP or POP3 or GoDaddy, my home email goes to POP3 setup, work is IMAP but it's off a local Exchange server so can't compare.

 

[tinpanalley]

Question...
With IMAP, I am accessing the server to get to my emails, but they are remaining on the server. Locally, I can use a client like Outlook to organize them but unless I sync back, those folders don't exist on my server. Isn't there a way to get it so that all my devices (in my case, computer, phone, laptop) all see the same in and sent folder no matter what and receive and send from the same folders on every device? Or is that NOT what IMAP is supposed to do? Maybe I don't understand IMAP after all??

 

[hang-the-9]

If the server is not an Exchange setup, subfolders will not work right. Also, many devices, especially phones, can't sync any subfolders or personal files. They only see the default Inbox.

This is about Mozilla, but should be the same option in other email clients http/superuser.com/questions/57896/how-can-i-get-thunderbird-to-check-subfolders-on-imap

 

[Fletch711]

Outlook and IMAP just don't work very well together.

Bump the folders you want to see into the Favorite folders by right clicking them.

The " personal folders" is going to be there, but right click it and go to advance.....I think you can rename it to something else like yourdomain.com.

 

[tinpanalley]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure I know what "bump" means.
Also is there another email client that works better for IMAP?? I like Thunderbird but do they still have that ridiculous issue with not letting you pick actual font sizes when composing emails?